2025 – 2030 Strategic Plan
Our Values
Partnership: We endeavor to provide the best possible experience to everyone we engage with, basing interactions on a foundation of equity, integrity, and humility.
Agility: We promote an organizational culture that encourages new ideas, improvements, flexibility, and innovations and turns challenges into opportunities.
Inclusion: We respect the breadth of life experiences across the communities we partner with, holding people experiencing hunger at the center of our decisions and actions.
Equity Commitment Statement
We recognize that hunger and food insecurity are rooted in poverty and reinforced by systemic inequities including classism and racism, among others. In Maine, we see the disproportionate impact of food insecurity across poor and working-class white communities and across all communities of color.
To achieve our vision of a Maine where everyone is food secure, we must include those impacted and elevate their voices in our planning and decision-making, listen to understand the diverse experiences and needs of people experiencing and at risk of hunger and invest in and work alongside our partners and neighbors to create equitable access to nutritious and culturally relevant foods.
Historically, the charitable food system, including Good Shepherd Food Bank, has conveyed hunger as an issue that can be solved by charitable food distribution, supported by individual acts such as donating food, funds, or time. While our ongoing food distribution and the support of individual actions is critical and alleviates much suffering, we acknowledge that achieving food security for all requires an understanding of the historic, social, and economic forces that create and perpetuate the root causes of hunger and food insecurity, and a collective societal response.
For our full statement, visit FeedingMaine.org/equity-diversity-and-inclusion/
Land Acknowledgement Statement
We recognize that our work and the work of our partners cannot achieve just and equitable outcomes without acknowledging that we stand on the unceded territory of the Wabanaki people, which includes the tribes of the Penobscot, Passamaquoddy, Maliseet, Abenaki, and Mi’kmaq people, and the impact that colonization, genocide, and displacement has had and continues to have on Maine’s tribal populations.
For our full land acknowledgement, visit FeedingMaine.org/land-acknowledgment
Our Journey
As we approach 2025, we are reflecting on an unprecedented decade of growth, transformation, and learning as we look toward the future and envision a Maine where everyone is food secure.
Our most recent 2015-2025 strategic plan boldly called for us to help stabilize the lives of the record number of people experiencing food insecurity as Maine recovered from the Great Recession by distributing more meals across the state, when and where they were needed. We tracked our plan progress using Maine’s meal gap, a framework developed by Feeding America that estimates the number of meals missing each year. As of 2015, we were distributing 19 million of an estimated 33 million meals that were needed annually, and we set a goal of meeting 100 percent of this need by 2025.
Over the decade we embarked on our Food for All Capital Campaign and comprehensive Campaign to End Hunger to raise the philanthropic resources needed to grow our collective capacity to distribute more meals. We opened a second distribution center in Hampden to serve the state more equitably and efficiently; distributed millions of dollars in capacity-building grants to partners in the charitable food network; responded to the unique challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, advocated for public policies to strengthen food security; and worked to establish and embed the values of equity, diversity, and inclusion throughout our work.
By 2023 we achieved our goal of distributing more than 33 million meals per year in partnership with other nonprofit organizations, schools, health care centers, policy makers, supporters, and volunteers, and have since exceeded that mark as rates of food insecurity are rising due to record inflation and a reduction in pandemic-era public support. Moreover, we’ve nourished our communities and people experiencing food insecurity by sourcing and distributing more nutritious and culturally relevant foods and supporting community-driven solutions tailored to address unique needs.
Today, the Food Bank stands in a position unlike any in our history, one both of strength and of opportunity, having emerged from our last strategic plan with the trust and partnership of the communities we serve, and invaluable lessons learned in the challenges of the pandemic. Yet, our work to help achieve the vision of a Maine where everyone is food secure is an ongoing journey.
For an expanded timeline of the Food Bank’s work, visit gsfb.org/about-us/history
Our Strategic Planning Process and Bold Vision
With the end of our 2015-2025 strategic plan in sight, Good Shepherd Food Bank underwent an in-depth strategic planning process to guide our work through the year 2030. Buoyed by the state of Maine’s Roadmap to Ending Hunger and the important role that people with lived experience of hunger and food insecurity played in crafting that statewide plan, we endeavored to develop a plan that was inclusive and intentional about centering community voice and experience.
Unlike traditional nonprofit strategic planning processes that begin with board and executive leadership, we started with our community. We engaged five stakeholder groups throughout the planning process, including designing stakeholder engagement plans, information gathering through surveys and focus groups, and consolidating input. These groups included partners in the charitable food network; community nonprofit organizations with work adjacent to our mission; members of our Food Equity and Justice Collaborative; staff; and board members. Stakeholder group input was complemented by voices of people with lived or living experience of hunger through the Impacted Community Recommendations & Review on the Interim Report for Ending Hunger in Maine by 2030 and Feeding America’s Elevating Voices report.
After a year-long process that garnered insight from nearly 200 stakeholders, we brought input from community voices back to the Food Bank and engaged more than 40 staff and members of our board to bring the plan to life.
Together, we grounded our work in a new bold vision: everyone in Maine is food secure.
This vision is complemented by an updated mission and newly articulated organizational beliefs and will be supported by five interdependent strategic priorities. Together, the priorities will seek to educate and mobilize our communities to inspire collective action to solve the root causes of hunger and advocate for policy change, while continuing to infuse communities in every corner or our state with healthy food and ensuring the charitable food access experience nourishes the whole person.
This strategic plan is the starting point for our organization to engage with you—our partners and our community—in new ways to achieve new results. Together, we can achieve our vision and ensure everyone has reliable access to the food they need to live a full and healthy life. Our work is stronger together.
For an in-depth description of our strategic planning process, visit gsfb.org/2025-2030-strategic-plan
Our Bold Vision
Everyone in Maine is food secure.
We envision a day when everyone in Maine has reliable access to the food they need to live a full and healthy life.
Our Mission
We promote food security in Maine by improving access to nutritious and culturally relevant food for people experiencing hunger, building strong community partnerships, and mobilizing the public to address the root causes of hunger.
Our Beliefs
• No one should go hungry.
• Hunger is not a symptom of individual failure; it is a community-wide symptom of systemic inequities.
• There is enough food for all, and a large charitable food system should not be necessary.
• People impacted by hunger must be held at the center of all we do, and their voices must be elevated in our planning and decisionmaking.
• Through a collective societal response, we can end hunger.
Partnering and Leading for a Food Secure Future
Ending hunger once and for all and ensuring that everyone in Maine is food secure will take more than just Good Shepherd Food Bank. It will require strategic partnerships with community organizations, policy makers, the public and private sectors, philanthropic leaders, and everyday people across our communities who want to effect positive change.
Our strategic plan focuses on five priorities to advance our vision. For each priority area, we will consider what experience and expertise we bring to advance the work and identify new and existing strategic partnerships to complement our strengths.
Together, we can create a future where everyone in Maine has reliable access to the food they need to thrive.
PRIORITY 1
Inspire collective action to address the root causes of hunger.
If we envision a food secure Maine, we must help build a movement that inspires collective societal action for the long term.
PRIORITY 2
Improve the financial security of people experiencing or at risk of hunger.
Hunger and food insecurity are symptoms of financial insecurity. We must advocate for systemic policy changes and improve access to resources that bolster financial security. $
PRIORITY 3
Source nourishing and culturally relevant food and distribute it in ways that improve access for people experiencing hunger.
While we work to address root causes, we must continue to alleviate the day-to-day hunger within our communities by ensuring access to healthy, culturally relevant food.
PRIORITY 4
Ensure that charitable food access nourishes the whole person.
We must ensure that the experience of accessing charitable food is positive and affirming for people at risk of and experiencing hunger, and that it promotes personal agency and community belonging.
PRIORITY 5
Nurture a peoplecentered and valuesbased organizational culture to ensure we can achieve our bold vision.
We aspire to build an equitable and inclusive workplace community where colleagues are connected and actively contribute to our impact.
What we heard from community voices:
• The scale and scope of hunger in Maine communities is often hidden or unseen and its impacts are misunderstood.
• Hunger is often portrayed as an individual failure or caused by individual circumstances when its roots are in systemic failings.
• We need our collective system to care about the whole of the collective.
PRIORITY 1
Inspire collective action to address the root causes of hunger.
If we envision a food secure Maine, we must help build a movement that inspires collective societal action for the long term.
Ending hunger requires a societal understanding of the historic, social, and economic forces that create and perpetuate the root causes and a collective response that inspires systems-level change. As a partner in the state of Maine’s Roadmap to End Hunger by 2030 and alongside a coalition of organizations, we can help educate the public and contribute to changing the narrative about hunger, its root causes, and what is required to end the problem for good.
Key Initiatives:
Partner to implement an awareness campaign about hunger, food insecurity, and the root causes to educate the public and soften the ground for long-term systems change.
Educate current and future business and community leaders about hunger, food insecurity, and root causes to build grassroots understanding.
Activate donors, volunteers, and partners as messengers and advocates.
Evaluate Good Shepherd Food Bank’s brand and assess its alignment with our 2025-2030 mission and vision.
What we heard from community voices:
• Inflation, food prices, high-priced housing, and expensive health care are top among reasons it is increasingly difficult to afford and access food.
• Working people are challenged to have enough financial resources to meet basic needs.
• The income thresholds for receiving SNAP or other benefits are out of alignment with current costs of living.
• Applying for help can be needlessly difficult and intimidating.
PRIORITY 2
Improve the financial security of people who are food insecure
Hunger and food insecurity are symptoms of financial insecurity. We must advocate for systemic policy changes and improve access to resources that bolster financial security.
Ending hunger requires access to economic opportunity for all. As Maine’s largest hunger relief organization, we can partner to advocate for systematic policy changes that improve the financial security of people experiencing and at risk of hunger. We can also partner to give people experiencing and at risk of hunger access to available resources to improve financial security.
Key Initiatives:
Advocate for policy changes that improve the financial security of people experiencing or at risk of hunger.
Support and advance federal and state safety net programs that alleviate poverty.
Partner within the private and public sector with others that are addressing the root causes of food insecurity or can help bolster financial security for people in Maine.
What we heard from community voices:
• Tackling food insecurity must start with communities that experience higher or disproportionate rates.
• Healthy and nutritious food can be unaffordable and there are barriers to getting it.
• Food is always in demand, and community-specific solutions are needed to ensure equitable distribution.
PRIORITY 3
Source nourishing and culturally relevant food and distribute it in ways that improve access for people experiencing food insecurity.
While we work to address root causes, we must continue to alleviate the day-to-day hunger within our communities by ensuring access to healthy, culturally relevant food.
We are committed to ensuring that people experiencing or at risk of hunger have access to nutritious and culturally relevant food by strengthening our efforts to source food and expand our distribution network, with a focus on addressing racial, demographic, and geographic inequities in food access.
Key Initiatives:
Continue to build and then expand sustainable systems to source high-quality, desirable, nutritious food that is culturally relevant.
Improve charitable food access for communities and populations that disproportionately experience food insecurity and/or where there are significant barriers to equitable food access.
What we heard from community voices:
• Transportation, fear of stigma, and limited food pantry hours are some of the common barriers people face when accessing charitable food.
• People experiencing food insecurity must spend limited time sourcing help with food and other basic needs, navigating many different systems.
• People seeking food or other assistance can experience internalized shame and some institutionalized practices perpetuate that experience.
Ensure that charitable food access nourishes the whole person. PRIORITY 4
We must ensure that the experience of accessing charitable food is positive and affirming for people at risk of and experiencing hunger, and that it promotes personal agency and community belonging.
We know that food is just one part of nourishment. Ensuring that people experiencing or at risk of hunger feel welcomed, connected, and respected when accessing charitable food can help nourish the whole person and reduce barriers to seeking food assistance.
Key Initiatives:
Identify and remove physical and other barriers to accessing charitable food for both network partners and individuals experiencing food insecurity.
Support and encourage partner programs to improve the dignity of experience for people accessing charitable food.
Collaborate with partners in the charitable food network to explore the feasibility of providing additional “wraparound” services.
Collaborate with current and new partners to address issues of equity and to ensure that the charitable food network is welcoming, inclusive, and responsive to the needs of all people.
What we heard from community voices:
• There has been much growth and change and staff seek opportunities for connection, communication, and collaboration toward a shared vision.
• There are ways to improve structure and practices to align internal culture with our future vision.
• More diverse voices and experience are needed across the board and staff, and the organization will benefit from a clearer plan for embedding the values of equity, diversity, and inclusion within our work.
PRIORITY 5
Nurture a people-centered and values-based organizational culture to ensure we can achieve our bold vision.
We aspire to build an equitable and inclusive workplace community where colleagues are connected and actively contribute to our impact.
Ensuring everyone in Maine is food secure requires intentional focus, resources, and values-based decision-making within the Food Bank.
Key Initiatives:
Enable values-based decision-making across our organization.
Invest in our workforce.
Ensure our tools, processes, and systems support our shared work.
Foundational Considerations for Our Plan
Following a period of transformational growth and with the new strategic plan in our sights, we recognize we must take time to ensure a strong foundation for our future work. As we operationalize our plan, we will consider the following key initiatives to create a solid base for future growth and evolution:
Board of Directors
• Assess alignment between the strategic plan and board and committee structure and revise as needed.
• Align the new board member recruitment process with the needs and strategies that emerge from the strategic plan.
• Facilitate conversations and learning opportunities for board members on foundational elements of the strategic plan, including systems change and root cause work.
Fund Development
• Design fundraising strategies and campaigns to grow and sustain philanthropic revenue to fund work outlined in the strategic plan.
• Determine opportunities for public funding within the strategic plan and determine if and how the Food Bank will resource and deploy public funding strategies, including solicitation, fund management, and reporting/audits.
Information Management
• Conduct an organization-wide assessment of our current IT and data systems, resources, and capacity and identify needs and requirements for meeting strategic plan objectives.
Marketing and Communications
• Conduct an organization-wide assessment of our current marketing and communications systems, resources, and capacity and identify needs and requirements for meeting strategic plan objectives.
Facilities
• Identify future facilities requirements based on the strategic plan to inform the current longrange facilities planning process.
Organizational Capacity
• Map our current programs, initiatives, and activities to our strategic priorities and identify current work that can be deprioritized and/ or assumed by partners or other organizations to ensure we have the capacity for new and evolving work.
• Use organizational mapping to identify opportunities for enhanced internal collaboration, communication, and shared resources.
• Review our current processes and procedures and identify opportunities to modernize with scalable solutions and leverage available technology to meet our current operations and future aspirations.
A Legacy and a Future of Partnerships
Good Shepherd Food Bank has a rich history of partnership and service in its 40+ years of commitment to fighting hunger. Our ecosystem includes strong alliances with Feeding America and its nationwide network of member food banks; more than 600 food access partners in Maine including food pantries, meal sites, shelters, schools, and healthcare centers; nonprofit and corporate partners; government officials; more than 25,000 philanthropic supporters; and thousands of volunteers.
This ecosystem has been critical to our success in expanding statewide meal distribution over the past decade, reaching new heights of community support and impact that once felt out of reach. Today, as we look ahead to the uncharted journey before us, we are confident and hopeful that Maine can be the first state in the nation to achieve food security for all.
While we cannot predict the unexpected challenges that will come our way before 2030, our strategic plan is designed to inspire new partnerships and collective action toward understanding and addressing food insecurity and its root causes so that we can realize our vision for a Maine where everyone has reliable access to the food they need to thrive.
Join us. Together, we can partner to create a Maine where everyone is food secure.
